Last port in the storm
by butterflymind
Summary: Story sandwich, starts off silly then hits the angst. My own reaction to the now infamous Divide and Conquer.


_Disclaimer: Stargate (II) Productions, ShowTime/Viacom, MGM/UA,  
Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions own the creative  
work Stargate Sg-1 and its characters. No copyright infringement intended. All the places are real and the hallucinated characters are mine._

_Authors note: Why I shouldn't go on holiday… all these places are real, hope to have a pic of the Egyptian house soon to put up. This goes to a great friend of mine who once said of another story_

_'It's good, but it's not a story, it's just you venting in prose.' Read this and you may see his point._

She held the pen suspended between her thumb and forefinger, tracing the lined pattern on the rubber grip. It was primed and ready, oozing turquoise ink across the flattered surface of the nib. It was her pen, the writing pen, the one she always used, that travelled everywhere with her. Even to this windswept Cornish shoreline. She'd come here to write and that was what she was going to do. The sea crashed playfully onto the rock she was perched on. Funny, she could have sworn it hadn't been there earlier. Sighing she stared for the fiftieth time at the blank, untitled page before her, wondering why she had no muse. She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, willing the ideas in her head to coalesce.

When she opened them, she found a two-inch figure sitting in the middle of the page, staring up at her.

"Problem?" Daniel Jackson asked, unable to repress a grin.

"Oh no" the writer muttered, holding her pen away. "I did not come here to work on you, I came her to write a play, I've promised them, remember?" Jackson looked up and down the page.

"That's a very short play" he calmly remarked.

"That's because I…Oh just go away." She squeezed her eyes shut, then open them. Daniel still stared back at her.

"Can't get rid of me?" He asked cheerfully.

"Not if you won't go" she growled.

"Don't blame me" he returned with mock indignation, "I'm your hallucination." She looked at him wide eyed for a moment.

"Listen mate" she said, "if you were my hallucination you definitely wouldn't be two inches tall."

"I didn't say I was what you wanted to see" he responded "I'm just the product of your overactive imagination."

"Well my overactive imagination has better things to do" the writer said and stubbornly returned her pen to the page.

"Aw come on, you know you want to." Daniel said, narrowly avoiding the pen point.

"Never thought I'd hear that from you." She muttered stubbornly looking in the other direction.

"You need to." This voice was new and feminine. The writer turned to find a miniature Sam joining the tiny Daniel on the page, clinging to his arm. "It'll relieve the tension."

"Oh man" the writer sighed, "what tension?"

"You know you're itching to write it" the tiny Daniel said, "go on, it's better than doodling that ridiculous face on the side of the page."

"I hate to admit it, but Danny-boy's right." Jack appeared mid-sentence.

"Well that doesn't make any sense." The writer replied.

"Who said I have to make sense? I'm your hallucination." Desperately the writer looked to the last corner of the page.

"Don't ask me," said the tiny Teal'c standing to attention, staff weapon in hand "I'm just doing my stint as scenery."

"Oh well then" the writer said, acquiescing with far too little encouragement. She closed her eyes again, breathing in deeply.

"What the hell are you doing?" The writer's eyes snapped open and she focussed on O'Neill.

"I'm creating a reality Jack." She responded.

"What's wrong with the one you have?" He asked. She looked around her, at the sea and the curve of the rocks.

"Oh all right then" she said.

The waves crashed with heavy thunder onto the shore, breaking and returning in a violent rhythm. Daniel strode just beyond their reach. Not running because that would have been cowardly, not walking because that would have left some part of his brain over to think. The wind whipped past him, his eyes stinging with what he swore was a reaction to the sharp salt tang in the air. He liked it out here, no one knew when he was lying. Still he walked, he could feel it, feel her, feel what was coming. But his body still stiffened as his stomach froze when she called his name.

"Daniel!" Even through the vicious wind her words cut through to him, stiffening his body like an electric shock and throwing his senses to the wind. She reached him and turned him round, suddenly it was her, wind whipping up her hair and framing her face in a gold halo.

"What are you doing here?" it wasn't an inquiry, or a question. It was a violent reaction to her presence, that half made him want to hold her and never let go and half to eject his meagre breakfast onto the sand.

"Looking for you." She was calm, deadly calm and with her the wind dropped, the air held, suspended as if waiting for her words, the silence was deafening. "Your friend said you' be down here."

"You spoke to Gordon?" Daniel asked surprised.

"Phoned him" she corrected, "got the number from Hammond." She looked him up and down. "What are you doing out here Daniel?" She asked, looking into his eyes.

"Archaeology" he replied defensively. "You remember? It used to be my day job? And learning Cornish, it's a Celtic language."

"I know what Cornish is Daniel" She replied acidly "and don't tell me that, you don't fly halfway round the world to dig up some flint arrowheads in the rain."

"Well then" he replied with equal venom, "maybe I just wanted to see the Atlantic from this side then, or maybe I, just for the briefest moment, wanted to be reminded what normal people did with their PhD's."

"Bull." Sam said shortly. "I've never seen anyone hare off as fast as you. This is because of me and Jack, isn't it."

"Jack and I" Daniel corrected without thinking "and I can honestly say you and Jack had nothing to o with it."

"Whatever" Sam replied. "Then what was it that sent you off on a disappearing act Daniel? Teal'c? Janet? General Hammond? C'mon Daniel, who pushed that button?" She almost taunted him, unable to control the tone of her voice.

"You really wanna know Sam?" Daniel asked, his voice rising against the rising wind, "you really wanna know? You drove me out here, you and your sudden desire to pour your heart out."

"You said it was nothing to do with me and Jack" she almost growled.

"It isn't!" He responded angrily. "This is nothing to do with Jack, this is you Samantha Carter, he is not involved."

"Well he's involved now" she replied, "because he's involved with me, so you'd better learn to like it Daniel Jackson." Daniel stared at her, the energy of he storm opening the floodgates.

"Like it?" he almost yelled, "like the fact that he got the chance I never did? Like the fact that I've been left walking wounded because you never noticed?"

"Never noticed what?" Sam yelled back "never noticed what you never said a word about? How was I supposed to know Daniel, when were you planning to tell me? When one of us was dying on a mission or before?"

"It was never that easy?" Daniel's face was close to hers, his words almost ripped away by the wind. "When was I supposed to say it? When we were looking for my wife? When she gave birth? When she died? When we were looking for her child? Tell me Sam, when in all those times would have been a good time to tell you?"

"Whenever you could Daniel, because I needed to know. Do you think I'd be here now if I'd known? Do you think I'd have made the same choice? I'm here because it's easier Daniel, sometimes it's easier to go back to someone you've loved than continue to feel hopeless about someone you're loving." The statement snapped something inside Sam and reaching up she pulled his glasses off his face with unaccustomed violence. "See Daniel?" She yelled "the world isn't all straight lines and rules, it's sometimes just as blurred as it is for you now." She stopped, breathing heavily. Daniel stared about him in bemused wonderment for a moment, then gently brought his fingers to his temple. Blood oozed from a small cut Sam had made in the skin. She looked in shock at what she had done, then slowly reached her fingers up to the same spot. Her fingers were stained crimson, Sam watched as a single drop fell off then onto the said, splashing out, staining it red. She looked back up at Daniel, as he gently probed the wound. She caught his hand and laid it by his side, then with incredible tenderness, replaced the glasses on his face. He blinked twice then looked down at her, almost puzzled. She was prepared to walk away then, to run like he had done. But she did not get the chance to turn; his arms were suddenly all around her and his lips captured hers. She melted, moulding herself to his form, trying to suspend the moment forever. The seas and the wind rose to a concophony around them but they did not notice. Finally he released her, needing air. She stood shocked for a moment then gently he pulled her forward, resting his forehead on hers, tanatlizingly close.

"Wow" he breathed, grinning.

"Wow" she agreed her face lighting up. The silence stretched until Daniel realized his feet were wet. They looked down, the waves had finally reached them and the backwash still gathered around their shoes. Simultaneously euphoria bubbled in both of them and they giggled, grinning like idiots. At that moment, the storm broke. Rain sheeted down in a solid mass. Daniel grabbed Sam's hand and raced for the cliffs, over the pathway and into the streets of Penzance. The two dodged on the narrow pavements until they reached Daniel's lodging. By now too wet to care Sam stopped and gaped at the building. Gaudy yellow and blue stood out on the granite street, but the building was elaborately decorated and it was more than simply incongruous.

"The Egyptian House?" Sam raised an eyebrow at Daniel and laughed.

"Home away from home" he grinned. For a second there was nothing but them, dripping wet in the sheeting rain. The confusing mess of the rest of their world could wait, they needed the time. He gestured to the open door and smiled a bittersweet smile to her; she followed him to the porch and stared out into the rain.

"Last port in the storm?" He asked sweetly, and she laughed, and the rain fell.

The writer dropped her pen into the sand. It fell, ink splashing out, staining the sand turquoise. She picked up the pen and the pad and stuffed them again into her overfilled rucksack. Scrambling up she climbed off the rocks and over the sea wall. She looked around, there had to be a pub round here somewhere and she really needed a drink.

End.


End file.
